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What are the warts that you are missing?
Well, LES and HB are more professional, more protective over its users, and less interested in how people are often treated on LET.
So in order for us to create a new LET, warts and all, it presumably needs to be:
Focused entirely on helping new/broke hosts get started on the same equal playfield as someone the size of purple daddy (i.e. LET from a week ago)
Accept that hosts only need to provide decent sales to have equal rights in the community (again, LET from a week ago)
Open unfiltered discussions about shitty hosts and people. So not every important paid seller has their threads locked and everyone's posts edited by you when it's negative about your fav seller... I.e. pre @jbiloh era
No special treatment of only a couple hosts, running unending spam threads with new users signing up just to post an invoice number. Basically a website with actual enahhement. This may be pre @jbiloh too
A blog & forum that pushes back and calls out predatory behaviour, unecessary fees, and stops people from creating paywalls (no matter how small). The fees needs to go back a week, but LEB stopped trying to protect its community when @jbiloh took over. So may need a hard push back.
Good deals and discounts. The best servers I find now are not on LEB or LET, and now that a paywall is added, that will never change. So maybe back tracking 2-3 years ago
Protection of users against scammers and frauds. That means no @jbiloh allowing @cociu to scam people again on here. And would not have given a green light to RackNerds who originally were associated to the AlphaRacks scam. So this would also be pre @jbiloh era.
An environment where it isn't about to be flooded by hosts paying just to make posts, and having moderators and owners telling them to post as many ads as they can to cover the costs. This would be normally pre-1 week ago. But given that's what's been granted to folks like PurpleDaddy maybe that's pre @jbiloh era as well.
I'm sure I could list more. But essentially a low end forum, where sellers aren't expected to pay anything or do anything except give great deals - and users are allowed to tell someone with a shitty rip off idea to go fuck themselves
. Where users are able to review, give feedback and speak about those sellers without worry about being extremely moderated all over.
I’ve deleted the ridiculously long response I wrote. I just can’t be bothered, it’s not going to make any difference, and you wouldn’t understand me anyway, we’re on totally different frequencies.
I hope LET makes you plenty of money and becomes the roaring success you want it to be Jon.
I'm just saying, but I think the only reason we are seeing any kind of increase in numbers (when the content and quality of posts in here appears to have gone to shit more or less) is because of unending thread bumping for 'double bandwidth'.
Bang on
Where in the world is LEA?
Is this Scientology or Q shit?
Here is a recent example. There's a huge forum called NamePros - for domainers, and they started asking $$ for posting offers, selling domains, etc.etc. then some community members started NameSlot.com which is totally free forum, 0% commission on domain sales, no memberships, can post offers for free - result? Within one year of starting it got 46K registered members that mostly migrated from NamePros because of fees. There members are still active on NamePros, but are more active on NameSlot when it comes for domain sales, offer threads, etc.
@skorupion has
lowendtalk.xyzand it will eventually rank higher than this LET.Great idea, but what would we call it? 🤔
LowEndTalk
100%.
It's terrible. @jbiloh please re-think this. You're going to drive-out good people that want to offer low-end services.
I own the ublockorigin.org domain, I might make it live and maybe sometime I can name-and-shame websites that bully their users into disabling their browser firewall? I've got a blank page currently up on it but check out the favicon.
There's a good book I read it's called The End of Advertising: Why It Had to Die, and the Creative Resurrection to Come by Andrew Essex. It is so fucking creepy how companies/people think they have a right to display something I do not want onto my device - like if I'm watching TV I will always mute the ads or switch to another channel (I don't watch much commercial TV though because I can't stand ads), and people just make a cognitive filter and that's explained in Essex's book as well I believe - every new form of advertising was highly effective when it was novel and new, but just like Covid19 repeated exposure lowers its effectiveness until it was perhaps 2-5% as effective as it was when the internet was brand new. Because of that they have to make ads as annoying as possible to try and grab your attention - but the WORST part about it now in my view is that most websites have absolutely no control or knowledge over what they're even advertising at all. They haven't selected them, no human has checked the ads for QC they're just delivered by Google or another advertiser.
There are other options to monetise LET without resorting to charging providers to participate in the forums. Ever heard of affiliate links/referrals? Jon could just set up his own provider directory (and delete the old one obviously) with all the referral links he can get.
@Aractus Ads as a concept isn't evil. Without it, a lot of new businesses won't stand a chance and it will only help the big businesses become even bigger
Of course there's something to be said about the current distraction factor of ads, such as on this site. The straw that broke the camel's back was asking providers to pay when the sidebar of this forum is absolutely plastered with ads, and I think @jbiloh isn't considering the fact that he's helping build the circumstances for an absolutely awful experience that would end up driving the very members that advertising depends on.
I run a website with ads myself (and the nature of the website actually has considerable costs, unlike a generic recipe or travel blog) but I only use ad networks that use static content and have a better stance on privacy. I think if websites favored static ads, adblockers wouldn't be a thing, but I digress.
Straight up, LowEndCaulk. And all we will talk about is discount bathtub sealants!
No but ignoring the advertising Cod of Ethics and not reviewing ads before publishing them is pure evil. It's a wilful breach of both consumer law and the advertising code. Everyone else adheres to the code - print, radio, television, and billboards. The only solution IMO is regulation and to make the code law.
Believe me when I say if I was to remove uBO and disable the system-level firewall the MPVS hosts file within 20 minutes I would see ads that breach the Code. That is completely unacceptable, let alone any other complaint.
Gorhill refuses to call uBO an "adblocker" and calls it a "wide-spectrum content blocker". But in truth it's far more accurate to describe it as a powerful in-browser firewall. It's a network security tool, and literally required to filter out malware.
There was a few years ago on a forum back before the new generation of Adblock started by Michael Gundlach was even around so we're talking the OLD original Adblock that someone on a forum boasted that they're going to detect people using adblock and they will serve them Malware instead. Several people then (including myself) confirmed that he was indeed following through on his threat. That's just how some webmasters are - salty assholes - and that was intentional malware. Advertising networks are spyware and even Google continues to publish Malvertising:
"In 2020 ... We also blocked or removed approximately 3.1 billion ads for violating our policies and restricted an additional 6.4 billion ads."
In the past they used to break that number down, but if memory serves (and you can quickly look it up anyway) the above number 3.1 billion malicious ads is mostly they published first before taking down and only 20-30% or so were never published. Of the malicious ads some will contain 0-day exploits and some will be more benign, but they are all malicious. Publishing up to 3.1 billion malicious ads annually is outrageous and it's evil.
Now that sounds good to me. I’ve got a few lying around 😉
It was sold on a domain auction afaik
Billing system URL: https://billing.lowendtalk.com
Hello..
1.) I tried to log in with my LET Acc, but my customer account is apparently not deposited. Do I need to complete a registration first?
2.) How do you inform about due invoices? So far I have not received any mails about this, also no information about the changeover.
to 2.) Mail found.
I'll send you a PM about this.
Your position seems well explained, but given your thoughts that ads are evil and that the fee model is also not acceptable, how should media entities, or more specifically, this website support itself?
By hosting it on a $7 VPS? And if it gets too small get a sponsor, add somewhere "this website is sponsored by xyz" and everyone happy.
But as soon this website was first sold (when Chief bought it from LEA) everything was different, now it's no longer a website run as a hobby project by someone not looking to earn money from it, it's an investment. Suddenly you need a lot more than previously needed, you need content writers, you need youtube channel, you need to get as much traffic as possible, you need ads, fees, paid staff.
It's no longer about website supporting itself, is it?
There's a lot of thought and passion here. It's great. People have opinions on how LE* should grow because they have interest in how it grows.
Yes it was a passion project from LEA. However, that doesn't mean there isn't other mediums and ways to take the passion and continue to let it grow. The original individual who started the project is no longer around but that's kind of what will happen with any project, the vision will change with new leadership and the changing landscape. I'm not going to fake it and say I know what LEA was thinking or planning, but there's definitely a reason why he transitioned the project to Chief. I think the spirit of LEA is important, but expecting the website to "continue as it did under his leadership" is not the right move. The content landscape is changing and LE* has to move with it to make it. Passion is great, but with additional funding people can actually dedicate more time (and are incentivized) to increase quality and value of the content (tutorials, article writing, video making, etc.). That's the theoretical hope anyways. If they can support/sponsor people who has similar passions to LEA to write and manage LEB/LET then that's great and better for you.
They're looking to build a space to sponsor and grow people who have similar interests as you, but are able to dedicate more time to it. Time does factor into $$$, and more time (theoretically speaking, assuming they have the right skills/team composition) should mean better quality. The goal here is to build this into a bigger and more professional "content generating" element which means they need further $$$ to try and build this vision faster.
The community is an important part of this growth. Both readers and providers. But remember this marketplace's transaction is that readers pay providers for service through this platform. The LE* team is looking to ask those providers to support this content growth (not you, the average reader/participant/non-hoster) at a price that is basically marginal for most hosting providers. Look... 100 dollars for 6 months is a "tall order" for an average person. But it's a drop in the pond for most businesses, while everyone (both readers and providers) will be benefiting from this growth.
I'm not on the leadership team here. I don't have any eggs in this basket. I don't work in the hosting market, nor does my work even relate to hosting. Like the leadership or hate it, but I think it's important for the website to continue growing to stay relevant and this is a critical path to achieving it.
And you do not think your unsolicited and spam email billing invoice that you sent to providers was not evil and was acceptable? You will never get this website to support itself with these types of low-grade, amateurish and completely unprofessional methods.
To be fair @jbiloh has said that doing that was the wrong approach and if he had the chance he'd probably go at it a different way.
Francisco
The fee was also discussed and announced (in advance) in a private stickied provider thread here on LowEndTalk. In that thread many providers voiced their support.
Regardless of how you have attempted to spin this woeful idea throughout this entire thread, it is obvious that many providers - and users do not support this.
No need to comment further, this is my last post and visit to this forum.
The door here at LowEndTalk is always open, hope to see you back in the future.
Be well.
Entitled asshole alert. Believes he's entitled to anything in life for free.
Nobody forced you to visit any God damn webpage (using their resources to do so) and deliberately not showing the ads is breaking the social agreement. Just be aware you're the asshole in this situation.
(Full disclosure, I block ads and scripts, I just don't go around acting like it's a fucking right with no impact on the content creators).